Organic Plastics!

Most all modern plastics can be classified by definition as being "organic" because they are made of compounds containing Carbon atoms.

There is now a new breed of plastics known as Polylactide Polymers (PLA) being developed by Cargill Dow Polymers LCC®©™. These futuristic plastics will have a myriad of broad-reaching uses including everything from making clothes to being used as hydroponics media.

Although many long-lasting, clean plastics are available already, as outlined in our previous article "Helllloooo Poly.!", these new plastics are heralded to be increasingly environmentally friendly due to the fact that they are readily recyclable and can actually be composted if desired. In contrast, many plastics in use today are designed to be so indestructible that they remain intact while buried in landfills and can take hundreds, if not thousands of years to fully decompose if they are not recycled.

The new PLA plastics are made using carbohydrate sugars extracted from crop plants such as corn, and they are also hoping to be able to be make them from recycled plant material and organic waste products in the future.

These plastics will be especially useful in agricultural circles for use in many areas such as potting mixes, seed trays, and hydroponics media to name a few.

Currently polyurethane and other plastics are used to make durable rooting substrates which can be steam-sterilized and used almost indefinitely until they are so packed with roots that they must be thrown away or recycled if possible. The new plastics will be able to be composted or used as mulch or soil amendments outdoors directly, saving the environment and money.

A couple of good links are: http://www.dow.com http://www.cdpoly.com

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